Grass stains and heartaches
by tides-rising
Summary: Jo and Ally start off on the wrong foot after meeting each other on the rugby pitch of their university. As much as they each try to resist it, nothing will stop the souls of Xena and Gabrielle from reuniting again.


Ally plodded out onto the grass fearfully. It was a bright sunny day at Stella University, "A stark contrast to what I'm feeling now" Ally grumbled to herself. She squinted at the sun, "What was I thinking, coming here?"

Two days ago, Ally had been in an odd mood. She felt restless sitting at her usual spot in the library with her usual stack of books to study and enjoy. She felt the call of adventure, something new and daring, something dangerous. Usually happy to be buried in her books, she felt suffocated; she hurriedly threw her belongings in her bag and ran out the library onto the lush, neatly mowed grass of the campus.

She was lost in her thoughts and didn't notice the figure walking towards "Hey, would you be interested in playing rugby?" she asked. Ally's thoughts came to a halt and she took a second to examine the girl. She was around 5'5 with large square shoulders, and her skin was tan from long hours of play in the sun. She had large, brown eyes and shining black hair. She was wearing a t-shirt that read "Stella Aurochs, women's rugby" in the school colors, red and gray. Her legs rippled with power underneath a layer of spandex and shorts, and she had an impressive cleat marked shaped bruise on her shin. As she waited for Ally to respond, she flashed a confident and slightly cocky smile. Without much thought other than the fact that she was fascinated with the girl's bruise, Ally quickly blurted out, "Yes!" The girl smiled and said, "Really? That's great, we practice on Mondays and Wednesdays at the soccer fields, be there! Oh, and my name is Danielle by the way, nice to meet you! What's your name?"

"Ally"

"Great. Well, have a nice day Ally, I hope to see you tomorrow!" and with that Danielle walked away. Ally continued walking and suddenly stopped in her tracks. "Shit! What did I just do? You don't know anything about Rugby!" She mentally kicked herself as she crossed the street to her apartment across from campus.

Ally changed into sweats and turned on her computer. Her roommates wouldn't be home yet for another hour, so she had time to act ridiculous by herself. She paced around the living room livid in her bunny slippers as the computer booted up. "Me doing rugby, that's funny!" She paused, and sat up. "But what if I could do it. Bu what if I embarrass myself?" She sat down and typed in "rugby" into her search engine. Her computer was flooded with images of men getting tackled to the ground, running and practically killing each other in the mud. She looked over the rules and reckoned that it seemed a lot like American football, but harder. Ally leaned back and rubbed her eyes. Everything she knew told her not to do it, but the nagging in her heart stayed. She was just about to click exit on all rugby searches and forget about the sport, and then her thirst for adventure was stoked by something unknown to her. She narrowed her eyes, and to no one in particular said, "I'll do it. "

"You've got to take me with you, teach me everything you know, you can't leave me here. Xena, I was meant for so much more!"

She stared up at her lover on her horse, who's chakram and armor were glinting in the sunlight. Xena jumped down and pulled Gabrielle towards her in a warm embrace. "I will always be with you Gabrielle~"

Jo woke with a jerk. For many nights now she had dreams of a cute blonde, and the love that radiated off of her. She blinked her blue eyes in the darkness shaking her head. Who was this Gabrielle?

Ally marched onto the soccer field after her morning classes, legs shaking from nervousness and a loss of appetite. Ally ran her fingers through her long blonde hair, and covered her eyes with her hand to shield the sun. She opened her eyes and saw the other girls walking onto the grass. She saw them and panicked. The girls were athletic and strong-looking, and appeared as if they could pick Ally up and throw her across the field. Ally looked down at her petite and scrawny body, and was just about to run back to her apartment when another group of girls came onto the field. These girls, while still taller than Ally, were shorter than the first group of girls. They were skinny and lean, yet solid and well built. "Okay maybe I can do this after all."Ally thought.

"Hey Ally!" came a shout across the field. Ally turned her head and recognized the girl as Danielle. Danielle jogged over to Ally and said, "Glad you could come out, I'll introduce you to everyone. That's our coach, Noah. He's from New NOAUHHH!" Danielle whistled to the coach and he turned his head and walked over. Noah appeared to be in his late twenties, and was every heterosexual girl's fantasy of a gorgeous man, accent and all. He had sparkling blue eyes and bronzed skin, with hair that was originally brown but streaked blonde from long hours in the sun and water. He was wearing a white polo shirt and khaki pants, and stood at almost 6 feet tall and towered over Ally. He gave her a dazzling, goofy smile and spoke to her. "Kia Ora! What's your name? "

"Ally"

"Very nice to see you here, Ally. You excited to play?"

"Uh, yeah… I've never played before, is that okay?"

"Of course! We just have to get you in shape. We're going to do plenty of working out today, we're taking the tour around the whole school we are! Speaking of which, I'm gonna make the forwards run an extra quarter mile. Good to see you Ally!" Coach Noah jogged off to abuse the giant women Ally had seen before.

"And that's our captain." said Danielle. Ally turned her head to see who it was, and froze. It was the girl from her dreams.

The rugby captain was six feet of beauty. Her long black hair was tied up into a fierce ponytail, showing off her angular jawline and high cheekbones. She brushed her thick bangs to the side with one hand, bringing Ally's focus to her striking blue eyes. Her broad shoulders filled out her gray t-shirt. She lifted up her arms and Ally stared in awe as she stretched her arms over her head and her t-shirt rode up, exposing her toned, chiseled abs. Ally's eyes finally came down to impossibly long legs, tanned and muscular under her spandex and shorts. Ally's mind was kept from wandering any farther when Danielle bellowed out across the field, "Jo! Come here, we have a new rookie!"

Jo swiftly turned her head and did her best to conceal her astonishment, there was Danielle standing with adorable little blonde. Jo looked and turned her head, noted that the blonde looked familiar. The little blonde stood at about 5'3, and had a wonderfully soft looking face. She stood awkwardly in a baby blue tee shirt, running shorts and running shoes.

Jo was usually cool and confident, but this blonde made her nervous and jittery. Why was the girl from her dream here? Would it be possible that she had the dream too? "No, she would think me a freak for even asking" thought Jo. "Calm down, you can do this, Jo. You're not called Ice Queen for nothing." and with that she confidently strided over.

Ally saw Jo snap her head to their direction and stare intently at them. Her eyes widened and she remained a frozen statue. "Xena." She whispered. Ally felt Jo's eyes drill into her and she felt her palms getting sweaty and her knees start to shake from the intense stare. As Jo walked over with long, purposeful strides Ally felt her breath quicken. She stopped in front of her, and their eyes met. Baby blue met emerald green, and the two souls of lifetimes past inside of them leapt up and reached out to another, yet the bodies remained still. Both were speechless for a while. Danielle looked at them both puzzled.

Jo felt rather puzzled at herself for feeling this way, so she narrowed her eyes and decided to act precisely contrary to the way she felt. Her eyes went cold, and she glanced Ally up and down with an icy stare. She scoffed and said, "Danielle, I thought I told you not to go recruiting over in munchkin land." Danielle and Ally were both shocked. Where Ally felt warmth and tenderness before was instantly replaced by anger. "Excuse me? I'm not THAT short!" Ally blurted out in anger. "Yeah Jo, what's wrong with you, did you have an extra bowl of bitch for breakfast today? Said Danielle. Jo instantly felt regret as she saw the cute blonde was very offended and angry. Her pride however, kept her from apologizing. She again sneered at Ally with cold eyes and said,"I need to go warm up with the forwards." She tried not to look like she was running away as she jogged over to where the coach was having the forwards stretch for running.

Danielle and Ally stood looking rather confused. Ally wondered what she had done wrong, and Danielle was puzzled at the very strange behavior of her captain. Danielle turned to Ally and said, "She's usually not like that, I don't know what's wrong with her. Well, let's not just stand around here, let's go and teach you how to play!"

"Alright let's play a game of light tackle!" Jo barked out after they were all done with stretches and warm ups. Ally groaned. She had already fallen backwards twice from the slippery grass, run the slowest in the laps around the field, and hit a girl in the face with a ball during passing drills. "Pick sides ladies!" said Jo. "Make sure to split the forwards and backs evenly!" Ally stood there clueless. She turned helplessly towards Danielle, who ran to her side. "Okay, so in rugby there are backs and there are forwards. The forwards are up front, and smash into the other team. The backs try to get the ball and run as fast as they can. You're small, but I think once we get you in shape you can be a wing." Danielle smiled. Ally was guided into formation, and the team got to playing.

Jo was amazing. She was a blur when she ran and a missile when she tackled. The one time Ally got the ball passed to her, she was slammed to the ground by Jo. She felt the heat and sweat of Jo's body, and forgot that she was on the ground with the wind knocked out of her. "God she smells good!" Ally thought.

"Let go of the ball!"Jo barked. Ally realized the ball was wrapped around her arms and she hadn't let go. Quickly she remembered the rule of giving up the ball when you get tackled, and pushed it away from her as quickly as possible, embarrassed that she was so distracted earlier. Jo grabbed the ball and ran off and resumed play.

"Alright great job ladies, don't forget we have a game this Sunday, and we have practice on Monday. Good communication out there, I'm proud of you all. "Said Jo. "Huddle in before we leave, Aurochs on three!" All the girls stuck their hands in. "1, 2, 3, AUROCHS!" As everyone else packed up their things, Ally watched Jo walk up to one of the forwards, Tina. "Hey great job today Tina I didn't see any forward passes and you're tackling lower" said Jo as she affectionately patted the girl on her back.

Ally stood and thought, "She so nice to the other girls, why is she so mean to me?" Ally blew her bangs in frustration, and then turned to walk off the field. She was stopped by Danielle, who reached over and ruffled Ally's bangs with a smile and asked, "So, how'd you like your first practice?" "It was okay," Ally lied. In reality she felt humiliated and exhausted, and couldn't wait to shower at home and cry. Danielle didn't miss Ally's browbeaten look however, and reassured her, "It's hard I know, and I'm sorry about Jo, she usually isn't like this… but I know she'll warm up to you, everyone else on the team thinks you're great!" It wasn't a lie, the other girls thought the cute little blonde was adorable, and some crushes were developing already. "This Sunday is a home game, why don't you come and watch, see what the game is like?" "Yeah of course!" Ally replied.

Sunday. Ally sat on the grass and watched as the girls warmed up and ran passing drills with each other. Jo was leading the girls, and she was in her element. She pumped up the team's morale and brought her team close in mindset as if they were all family. Then the game started.

"Amazing!" though Ally. Within the first half of the game, Jo had scored a try, and predicted the other team's play so well that Stella University's defense was impenetrable. The energy in the air was vicious. Stella's Malorie was brought down to the ground by her hair, prompting her to stand up and shove the girl to the ground in her anger. The referee did not see the hair pulling, and gave Malorie a yellow card. This prompted the Stella ladies to play even more aggressively, and the other team to play dirtier. An aggressive Stella girl was passed the ball and gave an opposing player a stiff arm when her hair was grabbed, but the referee called it as a punch and she was given a redcard.

It was halftime, and Jo gathered all the girls. Cindy turned to Ally and waved her over. She put an arm around Ally and said, "Hey it's halftime. You're part of the team you should be in on this!" Ally and Cindy sat down together in the circle as Jo stood up. Her eyes turned icy cold and lowered into slits. She gestured to the ground towards the other team's direction, and barked, "FUCK THEM. FUCK. THEM. We didn't come here to fight, we came here to play rugby! I don't wanna see any more penalties, or red cards! We are gonna win this game, and we are gonna win it the right way. I don't give a shit what they do, don't lose your cool. We all know better than that. Aurochs on three! " "AUROCHS!" the Stella women's team ran back to their positions.

The ball swept through the Stella teams so quickly Ally lost track of the ball multiple times. Try after try was scored, Ally lost track at the 3rd try. Then, in a quick moment, Ally saw Jo and Danielle look at each other very quickly and smile. Danielle charged forward with the ball and pushed all opposing players to chase after her. After overcrowding the left side of the field, Danielle passed it to her teammates, who passed down to Jo. A blaze of glory Jo charged down the now empty right side of the field dodging anyone that came to her and stiff arming an opponent before slamming her body on the ground in the try zone. The ref's whistle blew through the air, signaling the end of the game.

Cheers erupted from the crowd and from the team. Ally applauded and helped form an arc for the victorious aurochs to run through. Afterwards there was a social, and Ally sat with Cindy drinking beer while the teams from both sides chatted about their favorite rugby teams and complained to each other about the difficulty of lining the fields and kicking the soccer team off during their practice times. Jo continued to ignore Ally throughout the social, which she brushed off. It was obvious that Cindy was hitting on her, and Ally came to a realization. She had always known from day one that she was attracted to both sexes, and it had appeared she had struck gold. All around the social she saw girls flirting with each other and some obvious couples. She had heard stereotypes about rugby girls being lesbians but never realized that they were true. Ally stood up to leave. "Leaving so soon Ally?" said Cindy. "Yeah, I have a lot of work to get started on." Well, I'll see you tomorrow at practice then" said Cindy with a bright smile. She stretched her arms out for a hug, and Ally relented with a smile. They hugged, and Ally walked away from the social with a new mission: to prove to herself that she could be a badass like everyone else.

Jo ignored Ally throughout the social, but followed her out of the corner of her eye wherever she went. She had to admit to herself that her tough exterior was a part of her being shy. Her heart leapt every time she looked at those green eyes, and she was at a loss of words as to what to say. Her normally smooth and witty charm gone. After a drinking game involving chugging two beers at once, Jo looked across the grass to see Ally and Cindy embracing. Her eyes grew dark. She growled. As Ally walked away, Jo went to approach Cindy. Jo turned to face Cindy, and stood up to her full height to accentuate that she was slightly taller than her. They both turned to see Ally's form getting smaller and smaller in the distance. "She's hot!" exclaimed Cindy with a smile. She turned to Jo and paled at her menacing glare, made more terrifying with her piercing blue eyes. "Don't even think about it. " spat Jo. She narrowed her eyes one more time, and walked away. Cindy shivered.

Ally showed up to practice the next day determined, and this time with cleats. "No more falling down backwards" Ally muttered to herself. It proved to be less hard than the previous, and she was getting better. She wasn't quite the slowest runner anymore, and she didn't drop the ball as often. If Jo noticed at all, she didn't show it. As for her other teammates, they enjoyed her presence, and were instantly captivated by her charm and witty humor.

"She's doing better today." thought Jo. Still beating herself up for acting like an idiot and feeling an intense attraction to the cute blonde, Jo felt conflicted and confused every time she saw Ally. "I need to stay away from her." Jo shook the thoughts out of her head and walked back to her apartment.

It was Sunday. Ally sat eating her healthy breakfast of oatmeal, a hardboiled egg, and an apple. She carefully thought out what she was going to do, and afterwards she marched down her apartment and crossed the street, thankful that the field was so close to her. She laced up her cleats, and glanced at her watch. "8:00 AM, let's do this."

Ally's bangs became matted and her shirt clung to her skin soaked with sweat. As much as her muscles screamed at her, a certain raven haired girl's sneer popped into her face every time she thought of stopping. "Arghh!" she growled and kicked the ball high up into the air and ran after it.

" I want you to take my right of caste Gabrielle" said the amazon with a fatal arrow imbedded deep within her chest.

" Long live queen Gabrielle!" A Nation of amazons cheered and whooped.

Ally found that she was standing in the middle of field. She woke from her daze. "I need to stop daydreaming all the time…" she murmured, and kicked the ball again.

Jo woke up, yawned and turned on the coffee machine. She brushed her teeth, and returned to the kitchen. She poured herself a pot of coffee, and almost spit it out in laughter when she looked out the window. She looked out to the field and saw an exasperated Ally running back and forth kicking a rugby ball in an especially comical fashion. She pulled up a chair next to the window, and sat down sipping her coffee and chuckling to herself continuing to watch the little blonde furiously going in between running laps, doing crunches, and kicking a rugby ball. "She does not stop." Jo noted. She looked at the clock and determined that it was time to get dressed and go to class. She got dressed, and started walking downstairs.

Ally looked down at her watch and saw that it was 9:00 AM, time to shower. She picked up her ball and removed her cleats, exchanging them for comfy flip flops, and walked back to her apartment. She decided to take the stairs and hurriedly ran up the stairs, and crashed right into Jo.

Both women stared at each other for a moment, speechless. Ally stood gaping at the source of both her happiness and her anger standing in front of her, and she couldn't get the words to come out of her mouth. Jo was wearing a simple blue v-neck t shirt that showed off her large breasts and tapering torso, khaki shorts that reached up to her mid thigh, with grey tennis shoes. Jo stood staring at Ally admiring the gleam and shimmer of sweat on her body, her cherub-like face flushed from exercise, her loose t-shirt sticking to her stomach and showing off muscles bulging from just working out. Her shorts hugged her curvy ass tightly, which led down to luscious strong looking thighs and calves. The two women enjoyed the visual journey of each other, when their eyes met they both panicked and looked away abruptly, both embarrassed at what they just did. Jo cleared her throat. She vowed to be nicer this time. "So," she coughed. " you live here?"

"Yeah, on the 2nd floor."

"Oh, I live on the 4th."

"Oh. "said Ally. Her usually hyperactive tongue was silent now. Her feelings for Jo were overwhelming, and the fact that her rugby captain seemed to not like her for reasons beyond Ally's understanding left her even more nervous.

"Well," said Jo, her eyes shifting uncomfortably "I'll see you around." With that Jo rushed down the rest of the stairs and swaggered out of the building.

Ally stood in wonder. This was the most Jo had ever said to her. What changed? "And why did I choke! The one time she talks to you…stupid stupid stupid!" She berated herself, and trudged off to shower off her embarrassment and sweat.

"She prolly hates me for being a cold hearted bitch!" Jo cursed to herself and trudged off to class with her shoulders slumped and lips in a snarl. The sea of students heading off to class in the morning rush parted for Jo as her eyes pierced daggers into anyone that dared to look. A poor young man had his head down looking at his phone while walking, and bumped into Jo. She grabbed him by the shirt with one hand and tossed him off to the side, "Watch where you're going." She growled.

A couple hours later, Ally found herself storming down the stairs of the science building in a furious frenzy. "For the seven thousandth time goddamn it!" as she held her crumpled up chemistry test in her hand with a big fat red "F" on it. She roughly pushed into the building exit door, stormed out, pacing and fuming with no real aim or direction.

Jo was doing her reading on a bench and looked up, she saw Ally pacing in the most frenzied way and chuckled. "This isn't fair, why is she goddamn cute" Jo wanted to ignore the girl and go back to doing her homework, but she felt drawn towards Ally, she wanted to be around her. Scratching her head, she walked over to the blonde.

Ally paced and paced, feeling more and more desperate. "I studied so hard… aughhhhhhh" Her head was down as she paced, and she kept going until her way was blocked, and her eyes met a familiar pair of grey tennis shoes. Her eyes went up, drinking in the sight of those tanned, muscular legs that never seemed to end, to the angled jawline, all the way up to a pair of striking blue eyes, who were staring right at her. She stumbled backwards and tripped "Good god, I'm going to fall in front of her" Ally thought, when suddenly she was caught by two strong arms wrapped around her body.

"Gotcha" said Jo.

"Thanks."

"No problem" Jo grinned.

The two stood in the embrace for a minute, staring into each other's eyes. Then they quickly and mutually backed away and cleared their throats.

"So uh, you having trouble with something?" asked Jo, noting the crumpled test with red marks all over it in Ally's hand.

"Oh, yeah. Just chemistry. I'm having a little bit of trouble with it."

"Oh…. I'm actually a biochem major, I could help you!" said Jo with a little too much enthusiasm. Realizing her mistake and seeing Ally's shocked expression she cleared her throat and said, "I mean, if you want … " she nervously laughed.

"Yes!-I mean, yes. That'd be nice." Ally croaked out.

"Yeah how bout I meet you in the library tomorrow at the same time?"

"That's fine with me, I'll see you then"

"Okay"

Jo then quickly muttered something about going to class and speed walked away behind a building, out of Ally's sight. She caught her breath and said to herself, "God, I'm going crazy."


End file.
